How Native Americans and environmentalists stopped a $3.8 billion oil pipeline.
The Dakota Access Pipeline or Bakken pipeline is a 1,172-mile-long (1,886 km) underground oil pipeline project in the United States. The pipeline is currently under construction by Dakota Access, LLC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. The minor partners involved in the project are Phillips 66, Enbridge, and Marathon Petroleum. The route begins in the Bakken oil fields in northwest North Dakota and travels in a more or less straight line south-east, through South Dakota and Iowa, and ends at the oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois. The project was planned for delivery by January 1, 2017. On November 26, 2016, the project was reported to be 87% completed.
The $3.78 billion project was announced to the public on June 25, 2014 and informational hearings for landowners took place between August 2014 and January 2015.
The pipeline has been controversial regarding its necessity, and potential impact on the environment. A number of Native Americans in Iowa and the Dakotas have opposed the pipeline, including the Meskwaki and several Sioux tribal nations. In August 2016, ReZpect Our Water, a group organized on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, brought a petition to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, D.C. and the tribe sued for an injunction. A protest at the pipeline site in North Dakota near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation has drawn international attention. Thousands of people have been protesting the pipeline construction, with confrontations between some groups of protesters and law enforcement, along with disputes over the facts.
On December 4, 2016, under President Barack Obama's administration the Army Corps of Engineers denied the easement through Lake Oahe and will begin "undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes"
0 Comments